Immigration – Removal

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Where a petitioner was removed to Colombia, his petition for judicial review should be dismissed in part for lack of jurisdiction and otherwise denied on the merits.

“Carlos Alberto Rendón Castañeda (‘Rendón’) left his homeland of Colombia and entered the United States in the 1990s. For nearly thirty years, he lived a typical American life. He married an American citizen, bought a home, paid his taxes, and raised a son who graduated from college. And in 2020, at his son’s encouragement, Rendón began the culmination of his ‘American Dream’ journey thus far — his application to naturalize as a United States citizen.

“One part of the naturalization process is a routine fingerprint check. But for Rendón, that check turned out to be anything but routine. Instead of speeding his journey towards citizenship, it uncovered a harrowing secret: Rendón was not actually Rendón, but really William Hernando Usma Acosta (‘Acosta’), today’s petitioner.

“And Acosta was far from the normal suburban dad who Rendón purported to be. After shooting his first wife and his daughter in Colombia in 1994 — killing the former and severely injuring the latter — Acosta absconded to the United States and assumed the alias of Rendón, successfully evading the authorities’ detection for almost three decades. While Acosta lived here (as Rendón), a trial was held in Colombia where he (in absentia) was convicted of aggravated murder, among other charges. And it turned out that Acosta’s fingerprint scan connected him to an ‘INTERPOL Red Notice’ — close to, but not exactly, an international warrant — seeking Acosta’s extradition to Colombia to be punished for those crimes.

“The Department of Homeland Security arrested Acosta in 2022, commencing a series of proceedings resulting in his removal to Colombia. He asks us to review the decisions of the immigration judge (‘IJ’) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (‘BIA’) leading to his removal. After carefully considering all his arguments, we deny most and dismiss the remainder for lack of jurisdiction. …

“For all those reasons, we deny the parts of Acosta’s petition concerning judicial bias, removability, asylum, statutory withholding of removal, CAT withholding and deferral of removal, and the motion to reopen. We dismiss the remainder (about waiver of inadmissibility and cancellation of removal) for lack of jurisdiction.”

Usma Acosta v. Blanche (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-091-26) (58 pages) (Thompson, J.) Todd C. Pomerleau, with whom Jeffrey B. Rubin and Rubin Pomerleau PC were on brief, for the petitioner; Alexa Perlmutter, with whom Brett A. Shumate, Leslie McKay and Thankful T. Vanderstar were on brief, for the respondent (Docket No. 25-1045) (May 1, 2026).

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